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Thursday, October 1, 2009

Samsung Freecycle is a good lesson in community living; a system that teaches sharing is caring…. In this system you got a base unit mounted on a cycle, a device that you carry with you and a generator; all hooked to each other wirelessly. A bike sharing service is implemented and the twist is that users themselves got to manage the effective working of it.

It’s like this: I need a cycle pronto, and I spot one round the bend, I message to the current user, via my Sammy device (to his device), requesting him to allow me to use the bike. Once I get the all-clear, the Freecycle device with me and the bike communicate and tango together, unlocking the bike for me to use.

The unlocked bike is for me to use till someone else requests me to hand it over to them. In between all this theory, there a GPS navi involved and vocal translator (with integrated bone conduction earphones). This navi system rattles off info like news, comments, POI; basically adding utility to the whole setup.

Freecycle is a good solution for Universities and limited are campuses, where the community is small and the commute restricted.

BTW, this concept was a finalist at the Samsung Young Designer’s Award last year, thus the liberal Samsung branding.